What AI thinks Blackburn Rovers' stadium Ewood Park will look like in the year 2070 | OneFootball

Blackburn Rovers' Ewood Park underwent substantial renovation in the early 1990s, so FLW asked ChatGPT what it might look like in another 45 years.

Ewood Park has been the home of Blackburn Rovers since 1890, and was dragged into the modern era with substantial redevelopment under the ownership of Jack Walker in the early 1990s.

At that time, Blackburn Rovers needed a home that was fit for the Premier League, with government regulations requiring clubs to make their grounds all-seater. Walker's business interest - he made his money in the steel industry - made the renovation more affordable than it might otherwise have been, and on the pitch his Blackburn team responded by winning the Premier League title in 1995.

But in the three decades since then, Ewood Park has had little more work carried out upon it. With a capacity of 31,367, it's fine in terms of size for the club in comparison with their average attendances, and considering that the population of the entire Blackburn and Darwen area is 155,000, it might be considered an achievement that they can draw an average attendance of just over 16,000, even though the team hasn't been markedly successful on the pitch for some years.

It's been a long time since there were major changes made to Ewood Park, but these will become more necessary as time continues to pass, and with all this in mind FLW have asked what Blackburn's home might look like by 2070.

A multi-purpose future that benefits the community

Blackburn are already aware of the need to modernise Ewood Park, as can be seen from their Destination Ewood project, which has already consulted with the consultants Pegasus Group over future plans for the ground. Details of what this might look like are somewhat sketchy at the moment, but the very fact of the engagement demonstrates that the club are aware of this need to bring the ground into the 2020s and beyond.

ChatGPT has recognised this, and believes that the ground will end up as a multi-purpose venue, acting as a community hub as well as a football ground. Blackburn have already demonstrated their commitment to this by becoming the first English club to host a mass prayer meeting marking the end of Ramadan.

Elsewhere, AI envisages a community-led future for the ground which includes live entertainment venues, co-working spaces, landscaped leisure zones and better integrated public transport services. ChatGPT imagines the Ewood Park of 2070 to be a "year-round civic destination." The ground is also imagined to be fully inclusive, with multilingual signage, prayer spaces, sensory‑friendly zones, and designs that reflect the demographics of the town itself.

An increased capacity... but will this be necessary?

ChatGPT also envisages stadium expansion Ewood Park, with the four corners of the ground being filled in and the capacity of the ground being increased to 40,000.

But this raises one important question; is this something that Blackburn need to spend millions of pounds on? Rovers' average home attendance for 2024-25 was 16,161, just over half the current capacity, and they haven't had an average home attendance of over 20,000 in almost a decade and a half.

Taking the same number of people and putting them in a 40,000-capacity might have a negative effect upon the atmosphere for home matches, so while it might massage the ego of whoever would be paying for such a redevelopment, it might not even do the club that much good.

Safe standing increases and sci-fi innovations

Blackburn confirmed in March that they would be introducing safe standing areas at Ewood Park, and ChatGPT predicts an increase in this over time.

Of course, because we asked it to predict the ground in 2070, some of the innovations sound as though they're straight from the pages of a science-fiction novel, including "seating that can be fully integrated digitally" with modular rails, adjustable sections, interactive LED seats, and smart crowd monitoring to enable the ground to switch quickly and seamlessly from standing to seating and back, when required.

Sustainability will be key to any redevelopment at Ewood Park

As with many building projects, environmental sustainability is expected to be crucial to any redevelopment work at Ewood Park. This could contain a net-zero energy system, using solar panels of wind energy for power, water collection for irrigation in the rooves of the stands, and environmentally friendly landscaping.

This is the one area of any redevelopment which seems certain to happen, given the environmental initiatives that already exist and the importance of moving to a more self-sufficient future, when it comes to energy use.

By 2070, Blackburn Rovers will have been at Ewood Park for 180 years, and there will be a need to recognise that heritage at a club whose most trophy-laden days came in the 1880s and 1910s. The key to the future success of Ewood Park will be marrying that distinguished past with a sustainable and community-led future to make the place more than 'just' a football ground.